Demands of city pension funds are booming

Here's another shining example of just how silly things can get in Jacksonville.

The police union threw a party last week for the newly elected public defender, Matthew Shirk, to celebrate his taking office.

Hold on. It gets even sillier.

Shirk went.

So much for the healthy adversarial relationship between the Public Defender's Office and the police that is needed to ensure that people the police are accusing of crimes get fair representation.

But what the heck. That went out the window during the campaign when Shirk promised the police union neither he nor his attorneys would accuse police officers of lying.

Uh, but what if they are? It's been known to happen.

While that cozy relationship and the fact that the new state attorney, Angela Corey, is the darling of the Fraternal Order of Police will impact the legal system, another example of the police union's clout could end up bankrupting the city.

The Police and Fire Pension Fund has long been considered the third-rail of Jacksonville politics.

Mess with that dream of a deal and you're dead.

The problem, as I've written before, is the cost to taxpayers is out of control.

It's not just me saying that. Mayor John Peyton's chief administrative officer, Alan Mosley, outlined the pension dilemma in a memo he sent to City Council members earlier this month.

The city will have to put $56.5 million into the Police and Fire Pension Fund this fiscal year plus another $21.4 million into two other pension plans covering correctional officers and the city's general employees.

"Despite these significant contributions, however, all three plans maintain sizeable unfunded liabilities within them," Mosley wrote.

As of September 2007, the latest estimate available showed that unfunded liability for the Police and Fire Pension Fund alone was $534 million. And that was before the stock market collapsed.

"It is projected that during the next 20-plus years, the city's contribution to the Police and Fire Pension Fund will increase nearly 180 percent, representing an unsustainable financial obligation," Mosley wrote.

If the City had contributed its share annually to the pension fund has proscribed by the fund actuary, then a great part of the problem would have been solved and not arisen. As it was during the Delaney Administration, where pay raises are given in lieu of annual pension fund contributions, trouble will ensue. That and benefits that are given that are beyond the fund's ability to financially fund over the long run are the two major causes of pension problems. Not rocket science except when handled by politicians to whom chaos is an art form.